The Gendered Brain

Nirao Shah from Stanford Neurobiology & Psychiatry last night:

“I study how the brain becomes gendered. There is huge gene expression variation by gender, and differences in susceptibility to different diseases. For example, autism is 4x more common in boys than girls whereas PTSD is more common in women than men. Similar significant sex differences exist in Alzheimer’s, anxiety, ADD, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, and schizophrenia.”

“Half of the room is affected by this directly. There is a rewiring of the brain with every menstrual cycle. And it’s not 10 or 20%. There is a 300% change in the connectome in a specific brain region, the hypothalamus that regulates social behavior. And we have found a way to block those changes and related symptoms of dysphoria.”